Southern Cameroons Crisis: Activist Tanyi Ojongmboh outlines some very important facts

There is a saying that: It’s better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt. I am NOT also a lawyer or a legal expert but facts are facts even though you do not agree with them. All what matters to you is your opinion and common sense (which is not common).

So here are some very important facts about our struggle which am pretty sure you and your fellow Southern Crayfishes are not aware of:

[1] The Annex to UN article 102 says that if the UN is a party to any international treaty, then it’s the duty of UN secretariat to register the treaty ex officio. Now take a look at Statement of Treaties and International Agreements registered or filed and recorded with the Secretariat during October 1961: 

On page 12
No. 118 Trusteeship Agreement for the Territory of the Camerouns under British Administration. Approved by the General Assembly of the United Nations on 13th December 1946.

Termination with respect to the Southern Camerouns

In accordance with the General Assembly's resolution 1608 (XV) adopted on 21 April 1961, the above-mentioned Agreement was terminated with respect to the Southern Camerouns, on 1 October 1961, upon its joining the Republic of Cameroun.

Registered ex officio on 1st October 1961.

[2] S.T Muna, the very last Southern Cameroonian to address the UNGA was on the floor of the UNGA on 17 October 1961, barely two weeks after unification telling the Assembly that….

13. “My delegation wants to assure the General Assembly that unification and independence have been achieved in a peaceful atmosphere. As time goes on, the problems arising out of the marriage of British and French cultures in Cameroon through unification will be solved one by one.”

18. “Finally, we successfully produced a draft Federal Constitution, which, having been adopted by the two legislatures of East and West Cameroon, now binds the two States together as a Federation, which came into being as the Federal Republic of Cameroon on 1 October 1961. We are proud to report that this Constitution, drawn up by us, is typical and adaptable to our peculiar and existing problems.”

The question now is: Was Muna under any form of Coercion when he delivered that speech to the UNGA? What would you do if you were the UNGA? You can read the whole of Muna’s speech by visiting www.ambazonia.org/information/documents/Muna's Speech at the UN GA Acknowledging Unification & Independence of The Cameroons

Now, The UN which we need help from says there was a union that was registered ex officio, but we are the ones who keep saying there was no union. The very UN in United Nations Human Rights Committee Decision CCPR/C/83/D/1134/2002 in the case of Fongum Gorji-Dinka -V- Cameroon says in para 2.5 that Law 84/01 dissolved the union of the two countries and yet we say you cannot dissolve a union that did not exist. The said union which is our second International Treaty, known locally as the Foumban Accord, is cited in the United Nations records as an INTER-PARLIAMENTARY UNION, thus emphasizing the fact that the two parties to the Treaty were mutually sovereign states, each having its own government and parliament and that they had thus created a third parliament to which each subscribed members for the purpose of dealing with matters of common interest to the two countries.

It is the same UN that got Paul Biya to sign the UN Bakassi Accord stating that “I President Paul Biya of the Republic of Cameroun do hereby, in a bid to provide lasting peace to the Bakassi conflict, commit myself and my government to respect the territorial boundaries of my country as obtained at independence.”

It is the same UN that planted huge boundary pillars separating both Cameroon & Nigeria from Ambazonia. It is the same UN that presented two giant framed maps to Paul Biya showing clearly the British Cameroons and The Republic of Cameroon.

It is now 56 years after our country was illegally annexed and forcibly occupied by Cameroun. Instead of we acknowledging our mistakes and capitalizing on technology to find out the truth about our past so as to move the struggle forward, we'd rather sit our fat arses behind our computers and question facts that do not align with our preconceived ideologies.

Are we now going to question the UN why the treaty between Southern Camerouns and the Republic of Cameroun was Registered ex officio?

Tanyi Ojongmboh
Republic of Ambazonia.